A watermark embedding method based on DCT subband image characters is disclosed. An original image is converted into a frequency image using a discrete cosine transformation. The watermark information is then embedded into a specific embedding block in each macro-block of the frequency image. The method has the following advantages: (1) the image embedded by watermark is resistant from distortion and damages from compressions; (2) the watermark image can be extracted without employing the original image; and (3) the quality of the image embedded with the watermark image can remain intact.